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Yes, they make the game better

No, they make the game worse

It makes no difference

[Jonathan S. Fox]

I'm interested in hearing some opinions. Once upon a time, there were no caps on how many people you could recruit. Now that the caps on recruits and love slaves have been in for awhile, do you think these limits make for a better game?

[tehstefan]

From my limited experience, their a good way to make it so you actually have to work to increase your squad, in my view. However, I sometimes get irritated when trying to recruit sleepers, and having my squad filled so I can't. Maybe you could make a squad limit, and a sleeper limit, that way, you could have some squad members, and sleepers be separate. Then, if you wanted them on your active squad, for whatever reason, you'd have to wait for squad space to free up, so as to not abuse it.

My thoughts.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

That's an interesting idea, tehstefan, splitting sleepers into their own category. I like that thinking.

One thought I had is to increase the cap, but change it from a character-based cap to a global cap. It could be based on the juice and leadership of the current leader of the LCS, or you could have some sort of global experience and reputation level that lets you level up the LCS itself through your activities, thereby opening up new slots. This could be part of a larger system about grooming people's perceptions of the LCS that incorporates news stories, heat, community service, the Liberal Guardian, how bloodthirsty your tactics are (substituting for the ill-advised rampage system currently in the game), and other factors that are already simulated but not brought together in this manner.

Edit: I should note that if there's a global cap, I'd want to be pretty generous at higher levels. My goal would not be to stop players from building a large organization, but to, as is currently the case, encourage you to build up organically. If you're already doing well with a limited roster, I see no reason to stop you from getting a giant list of hippies if that's what you really want. I just don't want you to be able to make a giant hippie network before you've accomplished anything.

[Capital Fish]

That's an interesting idea, tehstefan, splitting sleepers into their own category. I like that thinking.

One thought I had is to increase the cap, but change it from a character-based cap to a global cap. It could be based on the juice and leadership of the current leader of the LCS, or you could have some sort of global experience and reputation level that lets you level up the LCS itself through your activities, thereby opening up new slots. This could be part of a larger system about grooming people's perceptions of the LCS that incorporates news stories, heat, community service, the Liberal Guardian, how bloodthirsty your tactics are (substituting for the ill-advised rampage system currently in the game), and other factors that are already simulated but not brought together in this manner.

Edit: I should note that if there's a global cap, I'd want to be pretty generous at higher levels. My goal would not be to stop players from building a large organization, but to, as is currently the case, encourage you to build up organically. If you're already doing well with a limited roster, I see no reason to stop you from getting a giant list of hippies if that's what you really want. I just don't want you to be able to make a giant hippie network before you've accomplished anything.

I'd just like to go on the record as saying that sounds bloody awesome! Would "bloodthirsty" tactics allow you to hire more "violent" personalities, such as soldiers, and gang members, while peaceful tactics would allow you to recruit more hippies and the like?

[Jonathan S. Fox]

It could, that's a neat idea. Maybe you can level up in a couple different spheres.

[tehstefan]

I like that thought. It might also be interesting, if you had to do things to reverse your violent image, to get high skilled peaceful liberals. Or to not be thought of as a dangerous terrorist organization, to which any action is immediately attacked by swat teams.

[mainiac]

I think I suggested once that it should be easier to get recruits from the same social class as your founder and recruiters, and harder in other social classes.  Caps in different spheres would work well at establishing that and would make the founder's background have a more interesting impact. 

Say if your founder is a white collar college student and you start with a cap of 6 white collar recruits but 0 blue collar and 0 brown collar recruits.  That means you can get hackers, writers and sleeper lawyers and judges, but you can't recruit people from the more militant professions until later, making sieges from mercs, CIA, etc., very dangerous, hindering your information gathering strengths.

On the other hand, if you had a brown collar transient founder, your recruiting slots would be brown collar which means you get gang members for early violence and looting, but you are going to be too poor to afford many safehouses and won't have sleepers in the justice system, meaning that violence is the only way for you to survive.

[Ampersand]

I think that after you've grown to be sufficiently well known and organized, people may start seeking out the LCS on their own and ask to join. This could be made more interesting if, after the CCS kicks in, they start sending people to try to get in and spy on you; so many people are trying to join, you really have to pay very close attention to weed out the undesirables, lest they begin spouting conservatism in the LCS buildings.

I also think it would be interesting if, after a certain point of development, you have a possibility of becoming, not just a Crime Squad, but a legitimate organization, found a TV or Radio station or something; become Air America Radio or MSNBC given enough time and effort.